The Last Door
by Hekate1308
Summary: You mentioned it. In passing, like you always do; there is no reason to make a big reveal about something that's just a fact, something you have to live with.


**Author's note: This is a very personal story, and I dedicate it to the best man I ever knew.**

You mentioned it. In passing, like you always do; there is no reason to make a big reveal about something that's just a fact, something you have to live with. But it's something you decided someone who travels in time with you should know, so you mentioned it.

You never thought of this.

You had thought about telling him once or twice when you found yourself chasing down an interplanetary smuggler with him in 2337 and happened to saw the date on a newsscreen. You were so busy that you barely registered the words, even now you only recall something like "It's the anniversary of my Dad's death", not any specifics. But he's the Doctor, so of course he remembers.

Springing it on you is just his style. You've just survived an encounter with a nasty alien species, and all you want is a shower, and the TARDIS stops and you look at him and wonder if there's a new adventure behind the door, and as it turns out, it's the biggest of your life.

"Behind this door" he says, gesturing towards it, "is your father".

Your heart starts to hammer in your chest, and your throat feels dry. Six years. He has been dead for six years and yet he is behind the door.

It's tempting to just step through it and see him, hear his voice, be with him. But nothing is ever that simple.

"He is there, but in a few hours he will not be".

And you know. You know that it means you are standing in a hospital, or rather the TARDIS is standing in a hospital, and that your father is in his private room, the room he died in, no, will die in, and you can't speak.

"Why?" you eventually croak and it holds so much meaning. Why this day. Why this day, why not one of your shared birthdays, why not one of the many hours he spent teaching you how to drive.

He knows what you are asking.

"You were different. A girl is about to lose her father. Would you steal one hour from her?"

You're tempted to say yes. You think back to the days after his death, when you hated the one who had been you a week ago, the one who still had a father. She doesn't know she'll lose him. She doesn't know he will be gone. What does an hour matter to her? It never mattered to you. It doesn't matter to her. In your last phone call, he said _I love you_ before he hung up, and you can't remember if you said it back. That's how little it meant to you, then. She won't notice. She thinks there are many more hours to come.

Why not steal one of them? Why not show him one of the places you used to talk about, see the birth of Rome, watch the Egyptians build pyramids? Why not take him when he isn't about to die –

Only he isn't. Not in his mind, not in yours. His death surprised all of you. He was supposed to get well again. No one saw the second heart attack coming. He was too young for that.

You swallow, and you look into the Doctor's eyes, and you know that this is it. He won't steal a moment from the girl you were. You can leave, and he won't mention it. But you will always carry the burden that you didn't walk through the door.

You nod, and he smiles, a smile that reaches his old eyes.

He thinks you made the right choice, and it's enough to make you walk through the door.

The room is filled with his snores that you remember so well, and the beeping of the heart monitor you never wanted to hear. In a few hours, it will stop.

But not now. Now he's here and he's breathing and he's your Dad.

You move towards the bed and freeze when you put out your hand. How can you wake him? Will he see the knowledge that he's about to die in your eyes?

He stirs and wakes and you don't know what to say.

He calls you by the nickname he always called you, the one only he ever used, and you still can't say anything.

You are aware how different you look. You have grown up, you are no longer a nineteen-year-old fighting to get her degree, you are travelling with the Doctor, you have seen things no one else has.

But you are still his little girl and you walk towards him and you sit down on his bed.

He seems to think this is a dream, and you let him. Because you realized how precious this time is, and that you don't want to waste it explaining.

The first words you say are "I got my degree". The degree you worked so hard for, the same degree he had. How proud he was of you when you started it. How you missed him when he wasn't there when you got it.

He smiles, the broad smile you always imagined him wearing, and tells you how proud he is.

You don't know how you managed to hold back your tears. He is here, and he's telling you that he's proud, and he knows, knows you finished your studies. You never thought he would.

You tell him you have been travelling.

He always loved travelling, and his eyes light up. As you tell him about the places you have been to, without mentioning that you visited them in a different time, his eyes continue to travel over your face, and your painfully aware that you're not the girl he left behind.

Then he suddenly says, "You look like your mother" and you can't breathe.

You've always looked more like him, but you know that your face has begun to show some of her characteristics in recent years, that were still hidden when he died.

You look on the watch in the room. It's ticking towards his death. Four hours. In four hours, his heart will fail. It happened in his sleep, they said. He didn't feel anything. You don't want to change that, so you can't stay that long. He has to fall asleep.

Four hours. Just when a nineteen-year-old will go to bed, only to be woken up shortly afterwards to be told that her world has changed. You swallow.

He uses the nickname again and you almost cry. No one has called you that in six years. No one will ever call you that again.

He strokes your cheek. You don't like being touched. You haven't even hugged the Doctor, for all he has shown you, although you might for what he has given you now. But you always accepted it when he stroked your hair or your cheek or hugged you. It was special between you two, so special that when he died, you couldn't put it on words.

"We had a great party?" he asks, and you realize he's talking about your degree. You say yes because you had, but he wasn't there, isn't going to be there, and it hurts. The nineteen-year-old is blissfully unaware. She's in her room, thinking he'll be there, smiling proudly. He won't.

You talk. You complain about how hard your studies were, you tell him how happy you are now. Because you are. You are travelling, seeing things you can't describe. You know he isn't there and you have made peace with it.

But right now he is there, and it hurts. It's a hurt you're ready to accept though, because it will be the first and only time you will feel it. Once you step foot in the TARDIS, he's gone again.

Of course he asks about her. How could he not. He's always noticed everything that has to do with you.

You say "It's a spaceship, Dad" and he laughs, and you think back on many night conversations, when the rest of the family were already upstairs and you sneaked into his office. He laughed just like this then.

You can't recall one of them – you can't recall what you talked about. You only knew that it happened. But this conversation, you'll remember for the rest of your life.

Is the Doctor watching you? No, he isn't. He wouldn't be. He knows when not to intrude.

He brought you here not because you regret anything, but because he is kind. Because when it comes to your father – there's nothing you could have said, nothing you haven't said. You didn't have unfinished business.

You tell your father about the Doctor, just to see his reaction. He never liked it when boys were around you. In a way, he was the stereotypical father. He's never going to meet your first boyfriend like you thought he would. But he can be worried about the Doctor, and he is.

It takes minutes to convince him that you're just travelling, and you soak up every one of them.

The clock goes on and on.

Why can't it stop? Why can't the Doctor make it? He's a Time Lord. Time should be at his command. He never stops Time. He lets things takes their course.

You know what it means. You have to let him go. When he died, it was quick, like ripping off a band aid, and it left a bleeding wound that slowly stilled. Now it's more like a heavy dull ache in your chest. You didn't have any hope of seeing him again, but after this you will know you won't and you can't say if that's going to be worse than when you were told that the hospital had called and knew, knew he was gone, that the father who had chased you around and tickled you and laughed in the night would never return.

It's an hour, an hour before his heart stops, when the door opens.

Not all the way, and he doesn't look out. But the TARDIS' door opens, slightly, and maybe it was her herself, and you know it is time to go because your father needs to fall asleep. He shouldn't be conscious when he's dying.

You understand that the Doctor didn't spring this on you because he is cruel. He did it because he is kind. If he had told you, you would have thought about things to say and you would never have had enough time to mention them all. But there's no regret now.

You tell him you have to go and you hug him. In this moment, his arms around you, you hate the nineteen-year-old who will go to bed shortly before his heart stops. Not because she still has a father, not because she is unaware of what awaits her. But because she has this moment, will have this moment, it will be coming to her when you are two, three years older than now, and you will only have the memory.

You hold on. This is it. The last moment.

You let go. You tell him you love him. He smiles and tells you he does too.

You leave. You turn around because you know he wants to smile at you. It's what he always did.

You wave and then the door closes.

Finally tears are running down your cheeks and you don't know if they are happy or sad.

The Doctor doesn't ask. He looks at you.

You hug him.

He isn't surprised. He hugs you back.

Afterwards you stroll through her, thanking both her and him in his mind. You got to spent a few hours with your father. He died knowing what you did, what you achieved.

You think about a nineteen-year-old girl.

You don't hate her anymore. She's growing up to be you, and if his proud smile is anything to go by, that is not a bad thing.

You walk through the TARDIS and you are happy.

**Author's note: This has been growing in me for a while. It means a lot to me, and maybe you don't understand. If you do – if you do because of the reason I wrote it, I can only say that everything has a silver lining. If you don't, enjoy what you have.**

**May you have a good and blessed day.**

**Hekate. **


End file.
